Kislovodsk
Description
Kislovodsk is a spa city in Stavropol Krai, Russia, in the North Caucasus region of Russia which is located between the Black and Caspian Seas. Population: 128,553 (2010).
History
In 1803 Tsar Alexander I of Russia ordered the construction of the military station which became Kislovodsk. The site took its name from the many mineral springs around the city. The settlement gained town status in 1903.
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Kislovodsk as a fashionable spa attracted many musicians, artists, and members of the Russian aristocracy. Several of the events in Mikhail Lermontov's 1840 novel A Hero of Our Time take place in Kislovodsk.
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The 19th-century building of narzan baths
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View of the city from the Little Saddle in the upper park at sunset
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St. Nicholas' Orthodox Cathedral
In literature
Kislovodsk is prominently depicted in the Prix Goncourt–winning 2006 novel The Kindly Ones, as the setting of October 1942 celebration of Uraza Bairam, the breaking of the fast that ends the month of Ramadan. The ceremony, attended by most of the SS and Wehrmacht officers in the area, was described in great detail. The highlight of the feast was the local tribe's presentation of a gift horse intended for Adolf Hitler to the Germans.
